Sooner stud softball pitcher, Keilani Ricketts has been nominated for Sportswoman Of The Year by Women’s Sports Foundation at Cipriani Wall Street in New York.

Ricketts is being nominated from her outstanding performance from Sooner softball and Team USA.

From SoonerSports.com:

At the plate, she ended the season ranked ninth nationally with 53 walks and 10th with an on-base percentage of .553. She was also 19th with an .825 slugging percentage as she helped lead the Sooners to a second-place finish at the 2012 Women’s College World Series.

On the international level, the San Jose, Calif., native captured a gold medal at the 2011 Pan-American Games in Guadalajara with Team USA, recording a win in the championship game against Team Canada. As both a pitcher and hitter, Rickets helped Team USA to a first place finish this summer at the World Cup of Softball VII in Oklahoma City, after she allowed just one run in 9.2 innings pitched and struck out 10 batters.

The senior, left-handed pitcher also helped Team USA finish second in both the 2012 Canadian Open Fast Pitch International Tournament and 2012 ISF Women’s World Championship, where she was the team leader in pitching for games won (four) and strikeouts (25) over the course of the tournament.

Ricketts was the unanimous Big XII player of the year as well as the 2012 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year. She is up against athletes like  May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings. She is one of only two NCAA athletes nominated for the honor. The other is Maggie Steffens, a water polo player from Stanford.

The award will be given out Wednesday in New York City.

Ricketts

Keilani Ricketts and the Sooners had a great day yesterday at the Sportco Kick-Off Classic in Las Vegas. The Sooners has Cal State Bakersfield up first and shut them out, 6-0. The No. 5 Sooners then took on UNLV, just to shut them out as well, 5-0.

Ricketts, the Sooner junior pitcher, had 16 strikeouts yesterday, now with 814 on her career. She only gave up 3 hits total yesterday.

Head coach Patty Gasso:

“Our pitching was outstanding. When our pitchers first came in, they were a little tight but they began to settle down. I thought our defense played well and that Jessica Shults was fantastic. This team has been waiting to play for so long I think they got here and got stuck a little and didn’t play up to the potential they are capable up. We want them to swing the bat where the whole ball park can feel it. They have to trust their swing and go with it.”

In the first game against Cal State Bakersfield, which is the second straight season the Sooners have opened against the Roadrunners, the Sooners jumped off to an early start. Pitcher Michelle Gascoigne only gave up on hit through the 5th and struck out eight batters, walking three. They dominated the entire game.

The second game against UNLV took a little longer to get on the board. The Sooners finally scored in the 5th and the bats woke up after that. The ended the game with a total of 9 hits and 1 error.

Oklahoma returns to the field Saturday for back-to-back games against Weber State and Kent State.